KPC: Government is force

This headline, used by me a few times, comes directly from Mungowitz. Over at Kids Prefer Cheese, they do a phenomenal job of chronicling the one and only thing government can do: exert force*.

The article (the Wired.com article to which Mungowitz link) is about the widespread violation of the Fourth Amendment.

From the conclusion of that article (note the use of the past tense):

But times have changed.

“In some ways, [administrative subpoenas] were a good thing if you were liberal,” Slobogin said of the administrative subpoena. “But they have migrated from corrupt businesses to people suspected of crime. They are fishing expeditions when there is no probable cause for a warrant.”

* – in counter-response to the response that government can do things like give (as in, Medicare, Social Security, unemployment, etc.): it can only do such things after it has forcibly taken from others. That is, government can only do something other than exert force after it has already exerted force. The fundamental nature of government is force (hence the headline coined by Mungowitz, “Government is force”)- restricting and controlling what people can and cannot do.